Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Shihandauml;b al-Din al-Suhrawardi was born around 1154, probably in northwestern Iran. Spurred by a dream in which Aristotle appeared to him, he rejected the Avicennan Peripatetic philosophy of his youth and undertook the task of reviving the philosophical tradition of the "Ancients."

Suhruwardi's philosophy grants an epistemological role to immediate and atemporal intuition. It is explicitly anti-Peripatetic and is identified with the pre-Aristotelian sages, particularly Plato. The subject of his hikmat al-Ishraqand#8212;now available for the first time in Englishand#8212;is the "science of lights," a science that Suhrawardi first learned through mystical exercises reinforced later by logical proofs and confirmed by what he saw as the parallel experiences of the Ancients. It was completed on 15 September 1186; and at sunset that evening, in the western sky, the sun, the moon, and the five visible planets came together in a magnificent conjunction in the constellation of Libra. The stars soon turned against Suhrawardi, however, who was reluctantly put to death by the son of Saladin, the sultan of Egypt, in 1191.

Synopsis

The second-century physician and philosopher Galen is not known for brevity. Although his writings on medicine are famously verbose and numerous, for centuries they constituted much of the standard syllabi for medical students. About fourteen hundred years ago, one or possibly several professors put together a series of epitomes of Galen’s work. In contrast to Galen’s rambling and argumentative style, these epitomes present the material dryly but clearly, offering systematic categorizations of concepts, symptoms, diseases, and organs. Originally written in Greek, The Alexandrian Epitomes of Galen can also be found in Arabic and Hebrew translations, and the epitomes have had a particularly profound influence on medical literature in the Arab world. This new edition presents the Arabic and English versions side by side, with a fresh, modern, and authoritative translation by scholar John Walbridge. Often cited in medical texts in the following centuries, these epitomes present an admirably clear survey of Galenism as it was understood at the very end of antiquity.

About the Author

John Walbridge is professor of Near Eastern languages and cultures at Indiana University Bloomington.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the Series

Preface

Introduction

The Alexandrian Medical Curriculum

The Alexandrian epitomes

The Edition and translation

Abbreviations and Conventions

* * *

Preliminary glosses

Manuscript table of contents

The eight heads

A gloss on the art of medicine

* * *

The Alexandrian Epitome of Galen’s Book

On the Medical sects

-The parts of medicine

-The sects of medicine

-Commentary on chapter 1: The definition of medicine

-Commentary on chapter 2: Medical experience

-Commentary on chapter 3: The necessary causes; The differences between the Empiricists and the Rationalists

-Commentary on chapter 4: The Rationalists’ criticism of the Empiricists

-Commentary on chapter 5: The Empiricists’ criticism of the Rationalists

-Commentary on chapter 6: The opinions of the Methodists

-Commentary on chapter 7: The differences among the sects

-Commentary on chapter 8: Galen’s criticism of the Methodists

-Commentary on chapter 9: The Empiricists’ criticism of the Methodists

-Commentary on chapter 10: The Rationalists’ criticism of the Methodists

* * *

The Alexandrian Epitome of Galen’s Book Known as

The Small Art of Medicine

Introduction: Methods of Instruction

Chapter 1: The definition of Medicine

Chapter 2: Bodies

Chapter 3: Signs

Chapter 4: The best states of health

Chapter 5: The genera of the organs

Chapter 6: The diagnosis of the brain

Chapter 7: The moderate temperament of the brain

Chapter 8: Immoderate temperament of the brain

Chapter 9: The temperament of the eye; The structure of the eye

Chapter 10: The temperament of the heart

Chapter 11: Compound temperaments of the heart

Chapter 12: The temperament of the liver

Chapter 13: The temperament of the testicles

Chapter 14: The temperament of the entire body—that is, the flesh

Chapter 15: Its single temperaments

Chapter 16: Its compound temperaments

Chapter 17: The temperament of the stomach

Chapter 18: The temperament of the lungs

Chapter 19: Disorders

Chapter 20: Diagnosis of diseased states

Chapters 21 and 22: Signs

Chapter 23: Causes

Chapter 24: The causes of health

Chapter 25: The cure of diseases

Chapter 26: Classes of organic diseases and their treatments

Chapter 27: Dissolution of continuity

Chapter 28: Treatment, prophylaxis, and convalescence

* * *

The Alexandrian Epitome of Galen’s Book

On the Elements According to the Opinion of Hippocrates

The eight headings to the epitome of Galen’s On the Elements

Chapter 1: The genera of the elements

Chapter 2: Their disagreement about the elements; The difference between the element and the principle; The principle of things

Chapter 3: Whether the elements sense and suffer; The occurrence of pain; Compounds; The tools of inference; The refutation of the others’ arguments; Their views on the elements; Their disagreements about the temperament; The genera of qualities; The compound by contiguity; Absurdities; A syllogism, premises, and conclusion

Chapter 4: That the element is not numerically one

Chapter 5: That human bodies do not come to be from a single humor

Chapter 6: Hot and cold

Chapter 7: The states of bodies; Alteration of quality and quantity; Instruction

Chapter 8: Compounds

Chapter 9: The qualities; Their disagreement about titles of books on the elements; Their disagreement about the temperament; Two bodies

Chapter 10: What is said to be potential

Chapter 11: Their disagreement about the humors; The rest of the drugs; The division of the elements

Chapters 12 and 13: Their disagreement about drugs

Chapter 14: The location of the humors

* * *

Appendix 1: Greek and Islamicate Physicians

Appendix 2: The Three Schools of Medicine

Appendix 3: The Structure and Terminology of the Eye in the Epitome of The Small Art